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Students report Wi‑Fi outages and construction noise; operations says firmware update underway
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Summary
Student representatives told the board that intermittent Wi‑Fi failures since spring break have hampered AP work and testing; Darnell Deems, chief of operations, said crews performed a firmware update and will monitor connectivity for the next several days.
Multiple student representatives told the William Penn School District board April 27 that Wi‑Fi connectivity has been inconsistent since return from spring break, disrupting classroom work and AP assignments.
One student said, “the Wi Fi has been, like, the biggest problem… it's been really inconsistent across, like, different classrooms,” reporting that some rooms and the ‘fire room’ lose connection on some days. Students also described construction noise at the Ninth Grade Academy interrupting instruction and testing.
Darnell Deems, the district’s chief of operations, told the board a firmware update was pushed over the weekend and the operations team will monitor the reported classrooms for two to three days to see whether the update resolves the issue. “So, we did a firmware update over the weekend that we believe is gonna resolve some of the connectivity issues,” Deems said. He added that if the update does not fix the problem, the team has additional steps planned to isolate the source.
Board members reiterated that the district issued quiet times in buildings during PSSA testing and said facilities staff had coordinated schedules to reduce noise during high‑stakes testing windows. Trustees encouraged students to report exact locations and timings so operations can target troubleshooting and mitigate impacts on instruction.
